Sol-gel technologies for additive manufacturing glass materials

Abstract

The sol-gel method has shown immense potential in materials science and nanotechnology. One of the cornerstone applications of the sol-gel technique includes the fabrication of inorganic glasses and glass-ceramics at relatively low temperatures as an alternative to conventional high-temperature melt-quench techniques. In recent times, glass fabrication with the sol-gel method has extended to additive manufacturing (AM), also referred to as 3D printing. Current sol-gel, glass AM uses solution-based gel compositions to produce three-dimensional glasses through layer-by-layer deposition and/or using photocurable polymer resins. Owing to its significant advantages of being able to fabricate glass components with arbitrary and complex geometry, AM presents a tantalizing opportunity to fabricate functionalized glass materials, increasing the technique’s popularity over the past decade. In this review and perspective, recent progress in combining sol-gel synthesis and additive manufacturing technologies used for obtaining inorganic glasses are discussed, specifically highlighting the research carried out in North America, and a prospectus of the field and emerging areas of interest and need is presented.